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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1875.
respondent with, the evil action. The man which asserts expressly that originally there who permits an unworthy guest to be present was no distinction of castes, the existing distriat a śrúddha which he celebrates (p. 68, 133), bution having arisen ont of differences of chamust swallow in the next world as many red- racter and occupation -- a view of the matter hot iron balls as the mouthfuls swallowed at the which is, no doubt, substantially correct. In feast by that guest. If one, through ignorance the Vishnu Purána, too, occur several instances of the law (p. 110, 167), sheds blood from of the different sons of one parent coming to be the body of a Brahman not engaged in battle, of different castes by reason of their several as many particles of dust as the blood shall roll occupations. The whole of this interesting to up from the ground, for so many years shall the pic is exhausted by Dr. Muir (Sanskrit Texts, Bhedder of that blood be mangled by other ani. vol. I. 2nd ed. p. 160), who says "we may mals in the next birth. The action inevitably fairly conclude that the separate origination of brings its own retribution. Another remark- the four castes was far from being an article of able feature of the system is the transfer of me- belief universally received by Indian antiquity." rit and demerit (p. 171,94). If one man wrongs So far as I can judge from the English version another, he takes upon himself the sins of the of the Institutes, the passage in which Manu latter, while the injured man on his side acquires appears to ascribe each class to a separate creaall the good conduct which the injurer had pre- tion is a comparatively late interpolation; inconviously stored up for a future life. And a sistent with the general tenor of the original singular advantage or efficacy was attributed to text. The division of the social functions of just punishment in this world at the hands of these classes is described for us in Manu's the civil power: for Manu says (p. 230, 318) Dharma Sastra several times over (p. 12, 88 "men who have committed offences and have et seq. and p. 286), plainly pictured from the received from kings the punishment due to reality; and doubtless there was then no methem go pure to heaven, and become as clear as mory of any different state of things. The those who have done well."
description itself discloses an advanced stage of Although the Institutes afford us many items civilization, and we have not the means of judgof information relative to the existing state of ing how that situation had been arrived at. society, in view of which they were composed, However, it may probably not be unreasonable these are insufficient to enable us to reproduce to assume that the Brâhmans were a sacerit as a whole. We get but glimpses of it. dotal class, sprung originally from one family, Amongst other things, the people are represent. or group of families, like the tribe of Levites ed as made up of (p. 289, 4) four principal among the Jews; the Kshatriyas an heredi. classes or groups--termed the pure castes- tary aristocracy, the rulers and administrators namely, the Brahman, the Kshatriya, of the land, somewhat resembling the Patrician the Vaisya, and the Sûdra. The sepa- Order at Rome, or that which the nobles of the rate creation attributed to each of these may be feudal times came to be; the Vaisyas all the taken to indicate that, so far back as popular remaining free Aryans, who-engaged in the more tradition reached, these classes had maintained respectable and well-to-do occupations of workthemselves in substance hereditarily distinct, ing life, such as trade, agriculture, &c. in fact and also separate in occupation, pursuits, and the capitalists of a primitive society-succeeded employment.
in maintaining privilege of birth ; and the suThe separation of the people into these four dras, a comparatively servile class, composed of classes was certainly an existing fact even in all lower ranks of Aryans, and perhaps of subthe Vedic period, for it is mentioned in theject aborigines. It may not here be out of place hymn to Purusha, --one of the hymns of the to remark that as the stream of Aryan immi. Rig Veda, where each of the classes is allegori- gration into India flowed on from the northcally represented as constituting that part of west, it no doubt, in course of time, became Purusha (or Brahma), from which Manu af- more and more intermixed with the existing terwards, and later still other Smritis and Pura- population of the country, and from this obtainnas, said that they were severally produced. In ed, among other things, the ingredient of the the Mahabharata, however, there is a passage dark skin. The result of the intermixture
